the annual year-end post

Off today to get my car serviced. I usually do this around the half-year change, but not usually so tightly up against the moment.

In the meantime, for record-keeping and general entertainment, here's the cities I stayed in away from home in 2019:

Costa Mesa, CA
New York, NY
Windsor, CT (2)
Williamstown, MA
San Diego, CA (2)
Santa Maria, CA
Moreno Valley, CA
Banff, AB
Ashland, OR

That amounts to four Inklings-related conferences (I think a record in one year for me), plus one musical expedition and one theatrical one. Of these six, the two reached by car were the ones shared with B., who achieved her goal of not having to set foot in an airport for the entire year.

San Diego was twice from a pre-Mythcon planning trip as well as the conference itself, and Windsor was twice for stays near the airport on the way to and from Williamstown.

Other states I ventured into slightly (very slightly) were corners of Vermont and New Jersey.

None of these were anywhere I hadn't been before, though nearly a whole week in Manhattan gave me a view of the place different from anything offered by earlier, more hurried visits. As I noted at the time, I appreciated the chance to finally figure out the subway system, but despite some extremely appealing cultural amenities, I would find living there far too exhausting. Everywhere else I visited this year was much less stressful.

During the year I had 34 professionally published concert reviews, plus a CD review and an article describing a new venue. I co-edited one volume of Tolkien Studies, to which I made contributions to the bibliography, book reviews, and Year's Work, and I had one of my conference papers published, which I whipped into written form at the earnest entreaty of the organizers.

One other note, since sure enough this is going to come up: yes, today is the end of the decade. It's the end of the decade whose third digit is 1. That's just as much a decade as any theoretical "2010s" which still has a year to run, and since it's all arbitrary number-slinging anyway - the Earth continues to orbit regardless of what labels we use - it's illogical to refuse to acknowledge the more popular usage.